The Modigliani Scandal - Ken Follett [29]
The proprietor seemed to feel he should stay with her: either out of politeness, or for fear she might steal one of the china ornaments on the mantelpiece. He said: ″What brings you to livorno—the sulphur springs?″
She was not inclined to tell him the whole story. ″I want to look at paintings,″ she said.
″Ah.″ He glanced around his walls. ″We have some fine work here, don′t you think?″
″Yes.″ Dee suppressed a shudder. The framed prints around the room were mostly gloomy ecclesiastical pictures of men with haloes. ″Are there any art treasures in the cathedral?″ she said, remembering one of her ideas.
He shook his head. ″The cathedral was bombed in the war.″ He seemed a little embarrassed to mention the fact that his country had been at war with Dee′s.
She changed the subject. ″I should like to visit Modigliani′s birthplace. Do you know where it is?″
The man′s wife appeared in the doorway and threw a long, aggressive sentence at him. Her accent was too strong for Dee to follow. The man replied in an aggrieved tone, and the wife went away.
″Modigliani′s birthplace?″ Dee prompted.
″I don′t know,″ he said. He took the cigarette out of his mouth again, and dropped it in the already-full ashtray. ″But we have some tourist guides for sale—perhaps they would help?″
″Yes. I′d like one.″
The man left the room, and Dee watched the child, still playing his mysterious, absorbing game with the car. The wife walked through the room without looking at Dee. A moment later she walked back. She was not the most genial of hostesses, despite her husband′s Friendliness—or perhaps because of it.
The telephone rang and Dee picked it up. ″Your Paris call,″ the operator said.
A moment later a woman said: ″Allô?″
Dee switched to French. ″Oh, Claire, is Mike not back yet?″
″No.″
″Will you make a note of my number, and get him to call?″ She read the number from the dial then hung up.
The proprietor had returned meanwhile. He handed her a small glossy booklet with curling edges. Dee took some coins from her jeans pocket and paid him, wondering how many times the same book had been sold to guests who left it behind in their rooms.
″I must help my wife to serve dinner,″ the man said.
″I′ll go in. Thank you.″
Dee crossed the hall to the dining room and sat down at a small circular table with a checked cloth. She glanced at the guidebook. ″The Lazaretto of San Leopoldo is one of the finest of its kind in Europe,″ she read. She flicked a page. ″No visitor should miss seeing the famous Quattro Mori bronze.″ She flicked again. ″Modigliani lived first on the via Roma, and later at 10 via Leonardo Cambini.″
The proprietor came in with a dish of Angel′s Hair soup, and Dee gave him a wide, happy smile.
The first priest was young, and his severely short haircut made him look like a teenager. His steel-rimmed spectacles balanced on a thin, pointed nose, and he continually wiped his hands on his robes with a nervous movement, as if drying the sweat from his palms. He seemed edgy in Dee′s presence, as anyone who had taken a vow of chastity was entitled to be; but he was eager to be helpful.
″We have many paintings here,″ he said. ″There is a vault full of them in the crypt. No one has looked at them for years.″
″Would it be all right for me to go down there?″ she asked.
″Of course. I doubt if you′ll find anything interesting.″ As they stood talking in the aisle, the priest′s eyes flickered over Dee′s shoulders, as if he was worried that someone would come in and see him chatting to a young girl. ″Come with me,″ he said.
He led her along the aisle to a door in the transept, and preceded her down a spiral staircase.
″The priest who was here around 1910—was he interested in painting?″
The man looked back up the stairs at Dee and then looked quickly away again. ″I′ve no idea,″ he said. ″I am the third or fourth since that time.″
Dee waited at the foot of the stairs while he lit a candle in a bracket on the